The hijackers holding a Kuwaiti airliner at Larnaca airport shot and killed one of their hostages Saturday and dumped his nearly naked body on the tarmac after Cypriot authorities refused their demand to refuel the plane. A Cypriot government spokesman said a medical examination of the slain man, identified as a Kuwaiti security guard, revealed that he had been "severely tortured" some hours before his death.

Another mysterious explosion has shaken Kuwait just days before the opening of a meeting of Muslim leaders, officials acknowledged Thursday. An official of the Ministry of Defense was quoted by the Kuwait News Agency as saying the blast was due to a "shell" that landed in an uninhabited area of Failaka Island, about 20 miles off the city of Kuwait in the Persian Gulf.

American businesses in the emirate increased security precautions after an anonymous phone call to the U.S. Embassy warned of a possible attack on an "American location." The U.S. Embassy issued a memorandum advising Americans in the Persian Gulf state to be cautious. Kuwait hosts about 8,000 Americans, including several hundred U.S. military personnel. The embassy memorandum came only days after a similar warning in Saudi Arabia. The U.S.

President Bush waived sanctions against Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Ecuador, which the U.S. had criticized as among the world's worst offenders in failing to halt human trafficking. The presidential determination said Cambodia, Venezuela, Myanmar, Cuba and North Korea should be sanctioned for failure to comply. The U.S.

After Iran announced last week that it had accepted a cease-fire in its nearly eight-year-old war with Iraq, an official in Kuwait said the news has been received in his country with "an immense collective sigh of relief." The official's remark reflected opinion not only in that tiny sheikdom but throughout the Arab states, militarily weak but wealthy in oil, that line the western shore of the Persian Gulf.

January 4, 1987 | TAWFIC E. FARAH, Tawfic E. Farah is editor of the Journal of Arab Affairs and a consultant with a risk-analysis company based in Fresno.

The political deck is being reshuffled in the Arab world. The oil-boom era has come to an end, and governing is a different game in times of economic contraction. The pressures vary from country to country--a shrinking economy, a population of questionable loyalty, regional hostilities (and one declared war), terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism.

Salman Ali Turki, on trial here with four other Arabs for hijacking a Pan American World Airways jetliner and killing 20 passengers in Karachi last year, said that he had a "message" for Pakistan. But his comment during a recent interview at the maximum security central jail here where the trial is taking place sounded more like a threat. "I have a message to the Pakistan government," Turki said. "You will be in a hard position.